Thomas Nelson: Patriot And Selfless Man Of The People

August 19, 1993

Thomas Nelson Jr., was born the day after Christmas 1738 into a family of prosperous merchants who had served in Virginia's representative body, the House of Burgesses, since 1705.

At the age of 14, he was sent to Christ's College in Cambridge, England, for his education. In 1761, he returned to Yorktown to work in his father's mercantile business, and he soon followed his father, William, who was governor of Virginia from 1770 to 1771, into political life.

Young Tom served in the House of Burgesses from 1761 until 1776, after which he was elected to the House of Delegates. From the beginning of the unrest in the colonies, Thomas Nelson Jr. took a radical personal stance against the British.

By the spring of 1776, Nelson was playing an influential role at the Virginia convention in an effort to get Virginia to declare independence, and he proudly added his name to the Declaration of Independence.

In 1777, Nelson was appointed commander in chief of the military forces in Virginia, and in 1779 he again became a member of Congress but was forced to resign once more due to ill health.

During the following two years, Nelson used his own money to pay troop salaries. In 1781, then-Governor Thomas Jefferson decided that the Commonwealth of Virginia should be led by a military man and chose not to run for another term. He suggested Nelson as his successor and Nelson assumed the governorship just as the British were laying siege to Virginia. The British general Cornwallis ravaged Nelson's state while the patriot could only watch helplessly and flee, along with the General Assembly, in June from Richmond to Charlottesville to escape capture. By the fall of that year, Cornwallis had settled into Yorktown and Nelson turned his attention from governing to fighting.

As head of the militia, Nelson joined Washington at the siege of Yorktown in September, commanding 3,000 soldiers. Still, Nelson faced criticism from colleagues and constituents of being an absentee governor.

On October 9, 1781, Thomas Nelson issued the order for which he would be long-remembered: He called for cannon fire on his own home in Yorktown because he believed Cornwallis had secured the house as his headquarters.

Nelson served as governor for less than a year, resigning due to bad health. He was never reimbursed for the money he spent during the war, and when he died, a pauper, at 89.